Key Tenets about the Composition Process
Key in the online discussion process of the Vermont MIDI Project are the professional composers who are hired to review student work online in a password protected website. These mentors are paid a small stipend to comment on student work and offer suggestions. Most spend two and a half hours weekly, although at times, particularly when students are working on compositions for the Opus events, some double their time online. Some of the artists are available as artists-in-residence. They also present workshops, and prepare resource materials for teachers and students. Other composer mentors combine full or part time jobs teaching in the schools and mentoring on the site. |
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Erik Nielsen has been composing for 30 years and his catalog includes works for chorus, orchestra, solo instruments, chamber music of many configurations and electronic music. His works have been performed in Canada, Europe and Australia as well as many locations in the United States. Visit Erik Nielsen's website to learn more. |
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Peggy Madden assembled her first computer based project studio in 1988. She currently works as a music technology consultant at Hartford High School where a generous gift brought a long-standing dream of a state-of-the-art music lab to fruition. She has also been an artist in residence in various schools throughout Vermont. |
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The music of David Ludwig has been heard worldwide and has been performed in some of the most prestigious venues. He is the resident composer of the Vermont Symphony, along with several other active residencies, and has gathered many awards. Ludwig joined the faculty of The Curtis Institute in 2002. Visit David Ludwig's website to learn more. |
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Troy Peters is Music Director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association and Conductor of the Middlebury College Orchestra. Among his honors are the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and letters and grants from Meet the Composer and the Rockefeller Foundation. His composition teachers include Ned Rorem and George Crumb. Vist Troy Peter's website to learn more. |
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Matt Podd is a sophomore composition major at Ithaca College. His first experience with composition came through the VT MIDI Project in the seventh grade and he has been involved ever since. He has had pieces performed in England, Spain, Canada, and throughout the United States, including several pieces in the Opus concert series hosted by the MIDI project. |
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Michael Close is the music teacher at Moretown Elementary School in Vermont. He also teaches cello at the Monteverdi Monteverdi Music School and the Vermont Strings School. He Graduated from Bennington College in 2003 with a Bachelor's degree in music composition and a Master of Arts in Teaching. He has been a mentor with the Vermont MIDI Project since 2004. |
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Dr. Sara Doncaster earned her Ph. D. in Theory and Composition from Brandeis University. She has received awards and commissions for her compositions from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Vermont Arts Council, the Hungarian Chamber Symphony Orchestra, the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Ragale Foundation and the Vermont symphony Orchestra, among others. A resident of Irasburg, Vermont, Dr. Doncaster has been an elementary and middle-school music teacher in the Orleans Essex North Supervisory Union and a private piano teacher for six years. Since the fall of 2006, she has enjoyed working as a composer mentor for the Vermont MIDI Project. She is the director of the Warebrook Contemporaty Music Festival, a three-day celebration of modern music taking place every three years in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Current projects include an opera, an orchestral work for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, a choral work for Social Band (Burlington) and a new work for tenor and six instruments for the Empyrean Ensemble in California. This July she is Composer-in-Residence for the Green Mountain Suzuki Institute in Rochester, Vermont.
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Patricia Morehead has been teaching composition at the high school and college level for more than 10 years. Ms. Morehead studied composition at The University of Chicago with Ralph Shapey, John Eaton, and Shulamit Ran. Patricia is lecturer in composition, theory and oboe on the faculties of several colleges and universities.
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Jeff Perrin has been teaching and performing professionally since 1986. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Music from Berklee College of Music, and has authored several nationally published guitar instructional books. His song transcriptions and instructional columns can be found regularly in Guitar World and Maximum Guitar magazines.
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Carolyn Keck was a music composition major at Bennington College. She also studied composition in London with Thea Musgrave and did graduate work in composition at Claremont Graduate School, studying with Karl Kohn at Pomona. Carolyn recently began teaching at Marion Cross School in Norwich, Vermont.
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| Composer and arranger Sammy Nestico occasionally responds to student work on the VT MIDI website.
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